'I've been around,' said Ace. 'The Doctor says that ancient evil can be found everywhere. It exists because it is is ancient, and it ancient, and it is is evil. There's no other reason.' evil. There's no other reason.'
'Which reminds me,' said Trevor. 'The Doctor's gone off after Jack.'
Ace couldn't suppress a grin. 'He's back?' she queried.
'Yeah,' said Trevor. 'He's at the Green Man.'
'Then I'd better get after him,' said Ace. 'He'll need my help.'
'No,' said Trevor. 'He said he wanted you to leave the "big picture" to him.' Trevor made no attempt to conceal his puzzlement. 'He said you'd know what he meant.'
Ace grabbed a torch from Denman, her eyes bright. 'Yeah, I think I know.' She turned to look at the others. 'We need to make some torches, split up, and sort these scarecrows out.
They'll be making for the boundary. The edge of the stain.'
'How do you figure that one, then?' asked Steven, watching as Trevor completed fashioning a makeshift torch from a piece of wood with a rag soaked in petrol.
'Jack is the main picture, right?' explained Ace. 'The scarecrows are just his bootboys. It looks like most of them have gone back to their sentry posts. And, if the church photographs showed anything, it's that the edge of the stain is important.'
'Have you seen my father?' queried Rebecca, picking up on what Ace had said.
'No,' answered Ace, before anyone else could reply.
Steven glared at the young woman, but said nothing.
'I'm up for that,' said Denman with a dramatic thump on the table.
Ace nodded at the man's enthusiasm. 'I suppose someone ought to check the Professor's OK,' she said. 'I'd do it myself, but I reckon I'm going to be a bit busy killing scarecrows for the next few hours.'
'We'll find the Doctor for you,' said Rebecca, although, in truth, Trevor looked less than thrilled at the prospect of meeting Jack i' the Green. 'All my life I've been terrified of Jack,' continued Rebecca. 'Now it's time to find out what he is.'
'Steven? Joanna?' asked Ace.
'I'm with you,' said Joanna immediately.
Steven couldn't hide his surprise. 'Since when have you been brave?'
'I'm not,' said Joanna, as if surprised at the strength of her exclamation. 'But we can't just wait here and do nothing.'
'That's the spirit,' said Ace. She turned to Steven. 'What about your parents?'
Mrs Chen put a calming hand on Steven's arm. 'We'll be safe here,' she said in a tired whisper. 'The spirits of this place have always been good to us. Just be careful.'
Steven hugged her. 'We'll be back before dusk,' he said.
'Make yourself torches, try to lock the doors, and don't let anybody in, no matter how plausible they sound.'
'Right,' said Ace as she headed for the door. 'I think I'm going to enjoy this.'
The black soil was expanding all the time, like an ink blot flowing over the fields. The ground shook as the alien creature pushed its tendrils far out into the countryside.
What had once taken decades or centuries was now visible to the naked eye.
Ace, Denman, Steven and Joanna watched the dark stain from their vantage point behind a clump of trees. Numerous scarecrows trod resolutely just in front of the ever-growing alien mass, each one no more than five yards from its companion. The protective cordon of abused humanity stretched over the arcing hills and out of sight.
'I'd like a closer look,' whispered Ace. That Jack thing must be vulnerable at the edge of the stain.'
Steven nodded, remembering again the photographs that had cost Baber his life.
'Even with our torches those scarecrows are too close together,' said Denman.
'Then we'd better shift them,' said Steven. 'A diversion.
Who's with me?'
'Listen, lad,' said Denman. 'This isn't the time to impress anyone with pretend '
'You chicken, then?'
Ace opened her mouth to interrupt the argument, but Steven was already gone, bounding over the blackened earth between them and the edge of the creature. Denman swore, and set off after him.
'Men,' said Ace bitterly.
'Yeah,' said Joanna. Her eyes widened in concern as Steven and Denman approached the line of scarecrows, shouting and waving their sputtering torches. Immediately the scarecrows deviated from their slow advance in front of the alien mass, and moved as one towards the humans.
Denman and Steven ran off, a small group of stickmen following. A gap was left in the cordon, the other scarecrows resuming their diligent march.
'Now's our chance,' said Ace.
The mirror parted like water as Hatch emerged into the tunnel.
He turned and used the rippling reflection for its proper purpose, straightening his tie and his hair. He walked back up the tunnel towards the Green Man's cellar, whistling tunelessly. He strode out of the pub and spent a moment looking at the village green, now quiet and still. A smile played at the corner of his mouth.
'Did I miss all the fun?' he asked.
If there was a reply, there was no one else around to hear it.
He crossed the green, his feet seeming to sink into the ground with each step, then springing upward, escaping the power of the earth that threatened to drag him down again.
At the far side, Hatch paused and looked around, trying to remember where he had left his car. Arriving in the village seemed like a lifetime ago.
He began to walk towards the eastern boundary, and passed the Chinese restaurant. Something made him stop. A voice in his mind seemed to say There is life here. Seek it out. There is life here. Seek it out.
The front door of A Taste of the Orient was cracked but locked shut. The conservatory at the back was ruined. The pungent smell of fire still hung in the air.
Fire. His mind filled with images of burning flesh.
He approached the kitchen, smelling out life as keenly as a bloodhound. The lights had been switched off and the shutters drawn. In the corner of the room two thin flames flickered in the darkness.
'We were beginning to think that no one was left alive,' said a female voice.
Hatch took a step closer and saw the Chens squatting down, their torches held out defiantly in front of them.
'It's Mr Hatch,' said Chen, standing and lowering his torch.
'Don't be afraid,' he told his wife, and encouraged her to do the same. 'Sir, there are evil creatures everywhere,' he continued in a terrified whisper.
'We do not know what they want with us,' said his wife. 'We mean no one any harm.'
'I know,' said Hatch with apparent concern. 'These are bad times for the little people.' He moved forward, and grasped both of them by the arms. 'But do not be afraid. Your deliverance is at hand.'
Hatch turned and left.
Later, when he passed the area in his car, the Chens were on the road in front of the restaurant, attacking each other with knives.
Trevor and Rebecca crept closer to the green, keeping in the shade of the overhanging trees that edged the lane. The surrounding area was deserted and quiet except for the occasional shudder of the earth itself. Something lived, breathed and grew beneath their feet.
Something trying to rouse itself from centuries-old slumber.
At the edge of the green, Trevor tested the ground with his foot. He almost sank in to his knees. 'It's alive,' he shouted, scrambling backward towards Rebecca. His hand grabbed hers just as the ground beneath them ripped apart, a huge organic fracture like an underwater creature opening its mouth to draw in plankton.
They tumbled blindly into the darkness of the earth, screaming as they fell, their fingers clasping together. And then, with a thump, they hit the ground.
'Oh God oh God oh God,' breathed Trevor, trying to shake the terror from his mind. 'You OK?' he asked moments later into the darkness.
All he could hear in reply was Rebecca crying beside him.
The nails of her hand, broken during the fight with the tiny scarecrow, still dug into his palm.
'Are you hurt?'
'No,' she sobbed. 'I'm frightened.'
'You and me both,' he replied, trying to stand. They were in a hollow cavern beneath the green. Above them, the pale sunlight still poured through the pulsing crack in the ground, illuminating the smooth rock walls around them.
They could feel the floor moving sinuously beneath them.
'What are you two up to?'
Rebecca and Trevor gave a simultaneous terrified cry and spun around to find themselves facing an ornate mirror.
Within this, in a misty, rippling lack-of-reflection, they saw the Doctor's face.
'Where are you?' asked Rebecca.
'It's a bit difficult to explain,' replied the Doctor sadly. 'Not in this dimension, in any real sense. Do I take it you found Ace?'
'She and Denman and a couple of others have gone scarecrow baiting.'
'Ah, yes, that sounds like her,' said the Doctor. 'Listen to me, I haven't much time. Hatch is the danger. He is a plague carrier. He's infected himself with a mutant strain of the Jack gene and a version of the psychic drug released in Liverpool.
You must stop him. But don't touch him, or you'll become infected yourself. And don't let anyone else touch him, either.'
'Then how do you suggest we stop him?' asked Trevor.
Deep in the mirror, two men in peasants' garb appeared before the Doctor could reply. They grabbed him, dragging him backward as the mist swallowed them up.
'Balls,' said Trevor angrily.
'What do we do now?'
'Discover a way out of here, I suppose,' said Trevor as they turned, to find themselves facing more scarecrows.
Ace and Joanna sprinted towards the tendrils and misshapen limbs that writhed and penetrated the earth at the edge of the stain. They hurled their torches before the scarecrows even realised that they were there.
The flames bit into the alien fronds immediately. The ground beneath them writhed and bucked.